History of Mobil 1

I found this to be an interesting read.

I hope this doesn't bring out the Mobile 1 YT Haters. This is just a history post, something I wasn't aware of.
geo
M1

Very interesting indeed.

Thanks for posting it, Geo. Sure is interesting. Mobil 1 is a great product.

Thanks, very interesting! We use Mobil 1 in the Subaru.

I'm a convert to Mobil 1. I always change my own oil and never saw a need for such expensive oil. In 2007 my wife got a new Suburban and it was using about a quart every 1500 miles, way too much oil consumption for a new vehicle, in my opinion. We had it in for service several times, and GM kept saying that was within spec for oil consumption. Finally our service guy suggested changing to Mobil 1. That solved the excessive oil consumption problem immediately. It now has almost 200,000 miles on it and oil consumption is about a quart every 5,000 miles. I can live with that, and I've switched to synthetics on all our vehicles.

Not trying to start a brand war. Had similar experience running an off brand conventional oil in the SUV. After an extended trip the oil level would be down. Switched to synthetic oil by a major company,(valveline) then the oil consumption stopped until the oil had several thousand miles on it. Still running synthetic every oil change and extended the change interval more miles. Believer in premium filters every change.

Used to run an old 2ton truck with a 350 engine in it. Hauled the same amount of sackcrete over the same highway weekly. Coming up one hill with the airconditioner on in the summer temp would run a little past normal. Somebody suggested that it might run a little cooler with synthetic oil. I tried it, didn't run cooler but it would always come over the top of the hill at 60 MPH with the accelerator pedal on the floor with regular oil. With the synthetic, it came over the top of the hill at 65 MPH. Always the exact same load, same time of day etc. It was always 5 mph faster with the synthetic. I have used it in everything I have since then.It obviously reduces friction.

Back in the mid 70s our company bought 2 new identical Chevy straight trucks with 20FT. van bodies and 427 powered. The boss and local Mobile bulk plant run a test running 1 on Mobile 1 and the other one on Shell Rotella 15w-40 for two years. I never heard what the results were but at the end of two years they switched the truck that was using Mobile over to Rotella. All the guy that run our garage said that they couldn't justify the extra the extra cost of using the Mobile 1.

I drank the advertising koolaid for several decades until I finally realized it makes no difference.
Today I buy the Wallyworld brand and change the oil every 3K miles on four vehicles. Been over a decade now since I stopped throwing away the money with no notable change in any way.

So, I read their marketing brochure. It's really very interesting. I have to apologize in advance for what comes next. Being that I'm an engineer(not chemical, electrical), and I like to really know things, it pays to dig a bit deeper.

The article begins with a discussion of PAOs at the start, and then goes on to talk about Mobil 1 down near the end. Natch - this would lead the consumer to believe that Mobil 1 is a PAO type synthetic lubricant. After all, the bottle actually says 'full synthetic' on it, so that has to mean it's a PAO - right?

Wrong. in point of fact, under a few specific cases, dead wrong.

Mobil 1 is a hydrocracked base petroleum product. The stuff in the bottle came out of a hole in the ground somewhere around the world, and was processed to a high degree, BUT it did NOT come from a process of synthesis of molecules which is the generally accepted definition of 'synthesize'.

Here is the best guess from the MSDS for Mobil 1 0W-30 'full synthetic'.

1-[b:c8961f8cea]DECENE, HOMOPOLYMER HYDROGENATED [/b:c8961f8cea] 68037-01-4 20 - < 30% H304
SEVERELY HYDROTREATED [b:c8961f8cea]HEAVY PARAFFINIC DISTILLATE[/b:c8961f8cea] 64742-54-7 30 - < 40% H304
SOLVENT DEWAXED [b:c8961f8cea]HEAVY PARAFFINIC DISTILLATE[/b:c8961f8cea] 64742-65-0 1 - < 5% H304


A distilled product called 'decene' is also considered a product of hydrocracking petroleum waxes. The other entries are just another way of saying 'processed organic petroleum'.

In commercial lubricating terms, there are 5 classes of lubes. Class 1, 2, and 3 are various filtered and hydrocracked petroleum products with trade names like 'decene'. Class IV (or 4) are actual laboratory made synthetics which really are 'full synthetics'. Class V lubes are very complex non-organics used in places like brake fluid for space shuttle, and special industrial lubes where organic reactance can be fatal, or detrimental.

Now on to the 'dead wrong' portion of our examination. Much like the vaunted roll out of the retail Mobil 1 synthetic way back, there was a much vaunted roll out of Mobil 1 piston aviation synthetic lubricant. It hit the market like gang-busters. Aircraft owners as a rule are not skin-flints when it comes to spending money on the plane, and Mobil 1 was double or triple the price of competing lubes for piston engines already in the market. No one cared! Spend it, put it in, and watch the savings! Less drag, more RPM, longer service intervals! It was the miracle fluid - finally.

Except, a couple planes came out of the sky, and the failure analysis was traced to lubrication failure. Then, a Piper twin with 5 people in it came down hard. Multiple fatal. Failure traced to seized engine. Then another one, and another one. Mobil 1 was the common factor in all the failures. Mobil 1 aviation oil was suspended from the market, and eventually Mobil oil quietly paid out some big, big money to settle lawsuits and rebuild aircraft engines. Mobil oil came back and said essentially 'Mobil 1 is "too good" for these old air cooled loose engines. The engine was at fault, the oil worked perfectly'. Yeah - sure. All the time - their main competitor P66 continued to provide quality, safe, inexpensive(comparatively) aviation lubes and fuels.

ExxonMobil hypes their products with catchy brochures. Almost no one uses them for industrial lubes, P66 and Shell have pretty much cornered the market where tribology and lubrication are critical.

Bottom line - Mobil 1 lies.

I have moved towards using synthetic oils in our cars and our diesel pickup truck. In the cold winter months, I like how the engine cranks over easier. I also have certain gender drivers who pay a lot less attention than I do to the service stickers. With that, I feel more comfortable with them driving past the service interval. I shoot for around 5000 miles on a change. Perhaps more on those vehicles driving more road miles and less short trip miles. I have noticed, too, with the easier cranking over of the engines, I don't seem to have batteries needing replacement quite as often. In one case, I bought a 4 year old car, drove it for nearly 8 years, and never had to replace the battery. That has never happened before. One vehicles specifies Mobil One engine oil...............it is a GM product.

I have heard leaks are worse with synthetic oil. Any truth to that?

(quoted from post at 15:39:52 01/31/17) I have heard leaks are worse with synthetic oil. Any truth to that?

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The short answer is yes. The longer answer is 'it depends'. Since the lubricants is really not a PAO, the old issue with leaks because the seals were incompatible is no longer valid. However, there are cases where if it was a small leak before with dino oil, the modern fake synthetics will likely leak even more. The PAO true syn oils would leak due to materials not being made for PAO lubes, and it got pretty bad for a while. Then, the seal mfgs started making better seals, and the problem more or less went away.

Yes,, there are two reasons that is MAY leak more.

First off, the high Base additives that are in ALL hd oils will act as a cleaner, and will slowly clean the sludge from the seals and surfaces. So if those seals are really worn out, hard and not longer pliable, the cleaning process will slowly expose the base seals to splashing oil, and then, the will start to leak or leak more.

Second, there was a period when seals and gaskets had a high level of silicon in them. The hd oils fully syn, partial syn, have additives that would actually leach the silicone out of the seals and they would fail. Those seals (1980s) were reconfigured so that they would not be affected by the newer hd oils.

Having used Dow Corning 300 Silicon Oil and Silicon High Voltage Insulation, the two silicones aren't compatible. So it's easy to see why one
would/could have seal problems where the seals weren't meant for, but were used with silicon compounds. The problems I encountered were
swelling, not shrinking.

Base stocks of some full synthetic oils are Poly Alpha Olephin which is also used as an excellent, benign, high voltage dielectric and thermal
conveyor. Difference in that use and other uses are the pressure tolerance and other specific usage additives added to them.....so was told me
by my product sales/field engineer.

changing oil every 3k is throwing you money away.

(quoted from post at 06:59:02 02/01/17) changing oil every 3k is throwing you money away.

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Replacing a engine that suffered the effects of extended service is a rite good exspence also. I don't know bout you but I can buy a lot of oil and filters with what a replacement engine cost.

Do the math and tell me how much your gamble saves me if I have to replace a engine that will run in the 5K range parts and labor.

The service interval is different for everyone some 3K some 5K its a
interval that should be tailored to your driving habits not some indicator in your dash that's been proven wrong.

How much does it cost to reverse extended service intervals issues if you suffer the effects. That is if you can reverse it, it will cost you $$$$$

(quoted from post at 04:39:52 02/01/17) I have heard leaks are worse with synthetic oil. Any truth to that?

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A leak is a leak its gonna get worst no mater what oil you choose.

I guess this guy gambled

https://www.facebook.com/Brutosbrasil8/videos/1836876773238196/

I was told once by a pilot that the reason the Mobil oil didn't work in aviation engines is due to the centrifugal force in an aviation engine. Not sure if I explained that correctly, what I'm trying to say is, put some what in a bucket and spin the bucket around, the water is pushed outward to the bottom of the bucket. Due to how the av engine is configured it pushes the oil out and this caused the Mobil oil to break down and separate, thus causing it to have no "oiling" ability.

In response to the leaking question. The physics of what was explained all make sense, however my experience has been the opposite. I've always used full synthetic (not necessarily Mobil) changed every 5K miles and none of my engines leak, all over 100K miles. My dad has always used conventional (Valvoline) changed every 3K miles and nearly all his leak some.

Yepper. Even the owner's manuals support longer intervals. Thinking back, it's been 7500 miles for non-heavy duty applications for quite some
time. I haven't had a Ford product since the '88 I traded for a Dodge in '98 but as I recall the owner's manual for that F 150 said 7500 also. My
current '11 Silverado says 7500.

As I recall Amsoil Co. (America's Oil????) was founded by an X F-86 Korean War fighter pilot who was curious enough to dig into what engine
oil his jet turbine was using and must have decided it would be good to market for the motoring public......no connection to the company or it's
products.